Adventures in Skiing

This week has been so much better than last week . . . thanks for the supportive comments from my last post. :-)

One of the things I did this week was take Ally and Nicholas skiing. But before I talk about that let me give you a little history about me and skiing. I LOVE skiing! Great ski memories came back to me the other day . I was notarizing some papers for a friend and she mentioned her husband likes to ski at this little place by Dayton, Washington . . . I responded "Bluewood?" She said yes and couldn't believe I had heard of it. Bluewood is this little 2-lift place, an hour from the Tri-cities. In high school, my best friend and I went up almost every Saturday during the winter. Good times.

Okay, now fast forward to college. I start dating my husband in the winter and immediately suggest we go skiing. We went a few times while we were dating and a few times after we were married, but then he started having all these excuses why he couldn't go (they mainly involved a basketball and/or football game). Finally, he told me he just can't stand paying to be cold. Needless to say, skiing is not a passion of my sports-enthusiast husband.

Now fast forward a few more years and I have children. I'm so excited for all my future ski bunnies. My first few lessons with Ally and Nicholas, however, were pretty rough. They mainly just wanted to ski in between my skis (I would kind of holding them up and ski them down the mountain). I would wake up the next day with arms so soar I could barely lift them. But there is light at the end of the tunnel . . . this last ski trip my kids finally grasped the pizza concept (tips together) and I was even able to move on to turning lessons. It was our best outing yet. Here's some pictures of the future Olympians:

Nicholas

Ally

Grandpa and Grandma on the Gondola

Feeling guilty like only a mother can . . .

You know those reports school teachers always ask their kids to do after some kind of "break," the ones where the kids tell what they did over break. Well, I'm fairly certain my kids will report that they watched entirely too much TV and ate entirely too many sweets while their mom sat at a computer all day. Our vacation last week put me a week behind at work. I've never understood the concept of using vacation time when you just have to work twice as hard when you get back to make up for it. Anyway, I'm feeling so guilty that other kids are busy making fun memories and mine are making, well, messes.

Luckily my friend Andrea posted the easiest Christmas treat on her blog, which I shamelessly copied! Ally pretty much did the whole pretzel, hug, M&M thing herself (I just put the tray in and out of the oven). So this year all our VT and HT families got treats thanks to her.

Andrew has also been crazy busy. He's been interviewing with publishing companies and probably going to return to the industry. He has interviews in Salt Lake (for Spokane positions, not Salt Lake positions) next week. I already told him he has to be home the second week of every month. I can't give up my book group!

If I can just get though this week, I'll try and be supermom next week. Until then, thank goodness for Dora!

Pics from vacation

Natalie freezing on the beach with Nick's shirt and mom's vest.

Kids and Lego Santa

San Diego Temple . . . so beautiful!

Kids at the temple

Girls with Cinderella

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Rollercoaster of a Vacation

We just returned from Disneyland. As we were flying home last night, I reflected on the trip and truly think the best word to describe it is, "rollercoaster" (pun intended!)

The highs were so high I'd get those little "happy tears" and the lows were so low I'd get, well you know, those same tears. I'll start with the highs . . . Legoland in San Diego. The rides aren't as spectacular as Disneyland's and it's not as big, but on the day we went, there was no one there! We almost had the whole theme park to ourselves. No one in our family was cranky, everyone just rode lots of rides and had lots of fun. Another high, Southwest Airlines (seriously!) First, everything was pretty much on time. Second, they let us preboard and since there's no assigned seating, that means we got to sit up front each time . . . right by the bathrooms, the beverages, and the nice flight attendants who spoiled our kids. Overall the flying part went pretty smoothly. Another high, the San Diego Temple. The kids don't get to see the larger temples very often and this one really amazed them. I marveled at how the kids acted so differently while on the temple grounds than they did at other places on our vacation. They were quieter, less active, more reverent. The temple brought the "happy tears."

Now for the lows . . . first, the unbelievable amount of people at Disneyland. We thought we were so smart going there before Winter Break because we thought there wouldn't be as many people. Boy were we wrong! It was the most packed I've ever seen it (but I've only been 3 times so I don't have a lot to compare). Each ride had about a 30 minute wait (oh the joy of waiting in line with a 2 year old!) Another low, our rental van's electrical system went out. We were at the beach and came back to the car with 4 cold, hungry children and the car wouldn't start. Because this happened right during rush hour, it took over 2 hours for a tow truck to arrive. The longest 2 hours of my life!

With the highs and lows, the whole vacation was like a rollercoaster. By the end of the trip I was truly ready to get off. Funny though, Adam woke up this morning and asked me if he could go to Disneyland today . . . maybe he didn't mind those long lines after all.